stripethree

Well, it’s been barely 48 hours, but so far so good. I have to admit, the ol’ SV had some surprises in store for us, most of them positive. I certainly did not expect to turn off I10W onto AZ90 and be met with a steady snowfall, but then again, apparently neither did most of the people already living here. It was cold the first night we were here, but that’s life. Our apartment, as good as it looked in the pictures, looked even better in person. Although it may be small, I like it. Put this place in Columbia and it would easily fetch twice the rent. We are away enough from the ‘city’ so it’s quiet and but there are still plenty of things within a few minutes drive. Some of those ‘things’ are more chain stores that I expected, as if the city is trying hard not be that whole in the wall, middle of nowhere place that no one ever wants to get stuck. I think it will be a nice change. My only real disappointments are that there is no Chipotle, the closest being in Tucson an hour away, and there is no VW dealer (hey, you never know what parts might be needed).

The road trip for the most part, was smooth. I won’t speak anymore of the incidents in Texas, other that I don’t plan on driving through there again anytime soon. And by soon, I mean ever. It was a long drive, and by the last day and a half, I really just wanted to get out and away from my car, but 2300 miles might do that. The car made through the ordeal with some bumpbs and bruises – bumper scrapes, blown tire, chipped windshield, and a cracked speaker cover – not nothing catastrophic and that won’t be fixed or just ‘lived with’.

I don’t want to pass judgment yet, but as I said, so far so good. I’m looking forward to settling down, getting into a regular work from home schedule, and getting into some things in the local area (yay autox!) and I’ll take it from there. We still have unpacking to do, our household good shipment will be here on Thursday, the cats are adjusting just fine (as Monkey is passed out on my leg and Llama is in the same state somewhere in the closet of clothes), and hopefully we can settle in and have fun while we’re here.

I’ll post some pics of the new place, the view (spectacular!) and whatever else is of interest in the surrounding area soon.

Well we’ve found our place to live and have a deposit on a 1 bedroom, 1 bath place right outside Fort Huachuca. It’s about half the size of our current place, but no bother, it’s short term and we won’t have much furiture anyway! It’s also about half the rent (jump for joy!). We’ve got a deposit down, so it’s definitely ours, and it will be ready a few days before we arrive, so we can move right in. Sweet.

I found out my current car insurance carrier won’t cover me in Arizona, so I’ve been shopping around for that as well. Seems there’s money to be saved there, even before we move. Then it will drop like a stone, mostly because since I will be working out of the house, I fully intend to take advantage of driving 0 miles to work everyday and using the car for ‘recreational purposes only’. Score.

Where have I been? All over the place, seriously. Over three of the last four weekends I have taken seven flights to four different cities (if you include the stop over in Atlanta) on four different airlines, attending two weddings and seeing in person what I have looked at in pictures for months. Las Vegas, Detroit, and Smyrna (Tennessee, near Nashville). Wedding in Vegas, visiting people and a car in Detroit, and another wedding in Tennessee. What follows are lessons learned

- The house always wins. I should have quit when I was ahead, but thanks to a dealer nicknamed Mr. Clean and another who was telling mother-in-law jokes, I ended up going home in the red. Not by much, it could have been a lot worse, and I’m hopefully somewhat wiser in the ways of casino Blackjack.
- Planned weddings in Vegas are fun! It certainly helps when you are on a first name basis with the bartender at the open bar within the first hour and when your table at the reception is that table, the one thats just loud and rowdy enough and no one is allowed to not have a drink in hand. It was fun and congratulations to Rebecca and Chuck (I promise, I havent forgotten to send the pictures!)
- Acrobatic maneuvers when intoxicated are not as fun. Stardust 1, my right knee, 0. Still sore from this act of stupidity, I thought I could be slick and hop a 3 or so foot barrier after the above described reception and open bar. Apparently not.
- Coupe Quattros are not for me. Moving onto the Detroit leg of my journey, I learned that as cool and dare I say, new age classic, as they look, a CQ is not a car I’m going to have fun with. A sad realization, but alas, it’s for the better.
- There are parts of 8 Mile Road that are not ghetto as hell. True story.
- Running through Detroit International Airport is not my favorite thing to do
- Tennessee is, well, Tennessee. How are we getting to the wedding? Take a left after you see a Mexican in a cowboy hat on the corner, then a right at the Wedding sign. Awesome. Self serve kegs, and a groom that says “Yes Ma’am” and then gets uppercut by cake courtesy of his new wife. Thats just how they roll.
- Drinking with your girlfriend’s parents can result in massive amounts of hilarity. I was called “one of the kids”, referred to as “Kharissaa’s husba… boyfri… ah, whatever husband”, and was told they only had one daugher left to marry because “awww honey, shes sure smitten with you”. Hahaha. These guys are awesome.
- Best t-shirt of the weekend goes to Kharissa’s father: “I traded my wife for this new gun best deal I ever made.” Awesome.
- Best Western isnt much in Tennessee, but the hot tub in the room was clean and worked and Dominos delivered, that’s all that mattered.

So thats all about the past. I think I;m good on airplane travel for a while. No bad experiences, just had enough of airports, planes, and the shitty rude people that tend to populate them.

The present, well, near present, will include Kharissa changing locations and moving in with me in Columbia. I’m very excited, but still somewhat nervous, mostly because I have not yet lived in sin. I’m sure it will be fine, and I can’t wait until August. Plans for a BBQ at the place are in the works, probably sometime around my birthday when its cooler and weve had time to get the place in order.

The big part is the future, this is not news to a lot of you, but come January, I’m picking up and moving to Arizona with Kharissa. Next August we will be relocating again to California. Again, I am madly excited for this, even though it’s still months off. Maryland, you’ve been good, but its time to try something new. My masters will be nine tenths complete, and the last class can be done online. I am working on the work situation, which hopefully will result in my ability to stay with the same company. Hopefully.

No blog after this long would be complete without a car update. As you may have guessed with the CQ experience, the R is staying, for now. I have not decided what to do once we move across country; driving two cars seems silly, shipping it is expensive, and then theres the inevitable issues of when the time comes to register it in Arizona and probably even more hassle in California. I have to get cracking on some research to see what will fly. So yes, the idea of selling it is not completely out of the question, but the opportunity to keep it and track it at some of the awesome venues SoCal has to offer (Laguna Seca anymore?) might be temptation enough. Theres still two Audi Club events to be had in the area, one at Summit Point in Ocotober and VIR in November. Theres finally a hope for fixing the Celis headlights which I hope to get to this week, and then hopefully I can whittle down the list of projects and pile of parts that I need to either use, put away, or sell off.

Then there’s our fat ass cat who becomes more of an attention whore every day. With the exception of last night when he acted out on being left alone all weekend, and not in a positive way, this guy is awesome. He’s feisty (yeah, well see what happens when he gets that manhood taken away), and playful, and generally entertaining. His acrobatics are awesome; making the name we have bestowed upon him an excellent fit. I am not around him enough on a daily basis to notice, but apparently he seems lonely during the day, enough that the suggestion has been brought of whether to get another kitten to keep him company. This makes me kind of weary because I think hes still young and crazy and should calm down and that effectively doubles the things that need to be taken care of with regards to pets. Sure, its not all that much, but, is it really merited to get another one? I don’t know. We’ve agreed to see how he is once we move in together and are not away on the weekends as much and then see if he will get a little brother or sister. Also in mind is that were going to have to cart these guys across country, spending over 30 hours in a car. Hmmm.

Well, that’s all I got, and its about time to go to class.